Empiricism and stochastics in cellular automaton modeling of urban land use dynamics

An increasing number of models for predicting land use change in regions of rapidurbanization are being proposed and built using ideas from cellular automata (CA)theory. Calibrating such models to real situations is highly problematic and to date,serious attention has not been focused on the estimation problem. In this paper, wepropose a structure for simulating urban change based on estimating land usetransitions using elementary probabilistic methods which draw their inspiration fromBayes' theory and the related ?weights of evidence? approach. These land use changeprobabilities drive a CA model ? DINAMICA ? conceived at the Center for RemoteSensing of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (CSR-UFMG). This is based on aneight cell Moore neighborhood approach implemented through empirical land useallocation algorithms. The model framework has been applied to a medium-size townin the west of São Paulo State, Bauru. We show how various socio-economic andinfrastructural factors can be combined using the weights of evidence approach whichenables us to predict the probability of changes between land use types in differentcells of the system. Different predictions for the town during the period 1979-1988were generated, and statistical validation was then conducted using a multipleresolution fitting procedure. These modeling experiments support the essential logicof adopting Bayesian empirical methods which synthesize various information aboutspatial infrastructure as the driver of urban land use change. This indicates therelevance of the approach for generating forecasts of growth for Brazilian citiesparticularly and for world-wide cities in general

Teleportation of entangled states without Bell-state measurement

In a recent paper [Phys. Rev. A 70, 025803 (2004)] we presented a scheme to teleport an entanglement of zero- and one-photon states from a bimodal cavity to another one, with 100% success probability. Here, inspired on recent results in the literature, we have modified our previous proposal to teleport the same entangled state without using Bell-state measurements. For comparison, the time spent, the fidelity, and the success probability for this teleportation are considered.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, published in Phys. Rev. A 72, 045802 (2005

Accuracy of a teleported trapped field state inside a single bimodal cavity

We propose a simplified scheme to teleport a superposition of coherent states from one mode to another of the same bimodal lossy cavity. Based on current experimental capabilities, we present a calculation of the fidelity that can be achieved, demonstrating accurate teleportation if the mean photon number of each mode is at most 1.5. Our scheme applies as well for teleportation of coherent states from one mode of a cavity to another mode of a second cavity, both cavities embedded in a common reservoir.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, in appreciation for publication in Physical Review

e-Termos: a computer-supported collaborative work system for terminological management.

The e-Termos is a Web Collaborative Environment composed of six working modules to automatize tasks for managing terminological products. Each module is responsible for tasks inherent to the process of creating terminologies having different tools that assist the Natural Language Processing activities and also collaborative tools for supporting the communication and interaction needs of team members. The main contributions of e-Termos are the collaborative aspect instantiated in terminological practice, the flexible creation of Terminological Records and the possibility of being used for teaching terminology, lexicography and translation.Propor 2010. Demonstration

Information complementarity in quantum physics

We demonstrate that the concept of information offers a more complete description of complementarity than the traditional approach based on observables. We present the first experimental test of information complementarity for two-qubit pure states, achieving close agreement with theory; We also explore the distribution of information in a comprehensive range of mixed states. Our results highlight the strange and subtle properties of even the simplest quantum systems: for example, entanglement can be increased by reducing correlations between two subsystems.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures (including supplementary material

Semiclassical Evolution of Dissipative Markovian Systems

A semiclassical approximation for an evolving density operator, driven by a "closed" hamiltonian operator and "open" markovian Lindblad operators, is obtained. The theory is based on the chord function, i.e. the Fourier transform of the Wigner function. It reduces to an exact solution of the Lindblad master equation if the hamiltonian operator is a quadratic function and the Lindblad operators are linear functions of positions and momenta. Initially, the semiclassical formulae for the case of hermitian Lindblad operators are reinterpreted in terms of a (real) double phase space, generated by an appropriate classical double Hamiltonian. An extra "open" term is added to the double Hamiltonian by the non-hermitian part of the Lindblad operators in the general case of dissipative markovian evolution. The particular case of generic hamiltonian operators, but linear dissipative Lindblad operators, is studied in more detail. A Liouville-type equivariance still holds for the corresponding classical evolution in double phase, but the centre subspace, which supports the Wigner function, is compressed, along with expansion of its conjugate subspace, which supports the chord function. Decoherence narrows the relevant region of double phase space to the neighborhood of a caustic for both the Wigner function and the chord function. This difficulty is avoided by a propagator in a mixed representation, so that a further "small-chord" approximation leads to a simple generalization of the quadratic theory for evolving Wigner functions.Comment: 33 pages - accepted to J. Phys.